I sat in a black, spinning chair in a North Face jacket, skinny jeans, and converse, smiling at the lady in front of me. She held a pair of black glasses, simple yet surprisingly elegant. She’d already tried to fit them on me, then she took them back to tweak them a bit. Now, I slipped them on, holding back a sigh of pleasure as the pain in my eyes relinquished and the world became crisp and clear.
“Do you like them?” she asked with a curious smile on her face. I nodded, staring at my reflection, then looking around at the rest of the building, testing the new lenses happily.
“Those are so cute on your face,” my mom told me. I looked at her and really saw her for the first time. She seemed so different, but I knew it was me. I turned my head back to the mirror.
For some reason, I didn’t feel a sense of strangeness, like when you first get a haircut and you are still getting used to it. I’ve had glasses before, and the strangeness was always there. This time, I just saw myself. These frames fit me so perfectly. All my worry vanished, all the nervous anxiety that my friends wouldn’t like them and they’d look weird and in the two weeks it took to get them my eyes would have changed their prescription (the last one is a bit irrational, I know, but I was terrified and excited, and strange things come from that mix).
As I sat in the gas station parking lot, waiting for my mom, I kept staring at everything, shocked at the clarity. I fixed my eyes on some trees, examining each individual leaf, then I took off the glasses and everything blurred. I hadn’t realized my eyes were so bad until that moment.
During the ride back home, I decided I didn’t care anymore if anyone else liked them, or if anyone thought I looked strange and unpleasant with glasses. They felt so nice on my eyes and so natural on my face. They still feel that way.
Every few moments, I take them off, just to see everything in my house, everything I thought I knew, and then I put them back on to really see. It is amazing that a piece of plastic with some special glass can change someone’s world so completely.
I know it’s weird to be writing about glasses and how happy I am with them, but I just felt so deeply impressed that I couldn’t help it. I love the glasses, and already they have become a part of me. It is incredible.
If you ever need to get glasses, trust me, do it. Even if you’re worried that no one will like them, even if you think you’ll look like a complete nerd, do it. They will make your eyes feel so much better, and you will feel like yourself if you find the perfect frames. I sound strange and everything, but it is true.